Yesterday evening the Swedish Academy received a personal letter from Bob Dylan, in which he explained that due to pre-existing commitments, he is unable to travel to Stockholm in December and therefore will not attend the Nobel Prize Ceremony.

The traditional Nobel press conference with the Nobel laureate in literature in the Grand Hall of the Swedish Academy will not take place this year. This independently of whether the laureate will come to Stockholm in December or not.

In February 1989, Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a death warrant for Salman Rushdie for having violated Islam through blasphemy with his novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was forced to go underground.